HOW BADLY DOES THE McCAIN LOBBYIST ARMY THINK BOB BARR WILL HURT THEIR POWER GRAB? NO CREAM FOR BARR, NOT FROM McCAIN'S BREASTS

The 66 lobbyists running the Double Talk Express are frantic-- even hysterical-- about Bob Barr's possible candidacy. It will allow McCain no room to maneuver. His hopes to trick moderates into voting for him with bogus promises of environmental-friendly policies or a less rabid position on Choice, will be non-starters if the far right base of the GOP has someplace else to go. Yesterday's Moonie Times explained how McCain's forces were pressuring Barr to not run. "Mr. Barr says even people who have tried to dissuade him understand why he thinks it important to raise issues from what he calls a 'genuinely conservative' perspective and to offer alternatives to the positions of the two major-party candidates. 'In the month since we formed our exploratory committee, not a single Republican who has spoken with me to try and convince me not to seek the Libertarian nomination has disagreed with my reasons for considering a run,'" Mr. Barr told the Moonies. That changed today when McCain's team gave him a really good reason not to run: a taste of the vicious mudslinging he has in store for him. After reading Dana Milbank's column in the Washington Post this morning, Barr knows this isn't going to be a debate over who is truer to conservative principles.

As a Republican candidate for the House in 1994, he rose to national attention when reports alleged that he had licked whipped cream off the breasts of two women at a charity event.

As a congressman from Georgia, the thrice-married Barr returned attention to the whipped-cream episode when, speaking in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, he argued that "the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society."

He may have "licked whipped cream off the breasts" at a charity event but the vicious and hardened cadre of Republican gunslingers McCain has assembled to destroy Barack Obama will make mincemeat of Bob Barr-- and they're licking their chops and feeling... less than charitable.

Can Barr compete in the big leagues? McCain's crew will throw everything including the kitchen sink at him. Imagine Republican operatives wringing their hands about how divisive he was to lead the charge against Bill Clinton! Yesterday, though Barr gave the McCain camp reasons to worry.

"What's your problem with McCain?" one of the reporters asked after Barr's announcement speech.

Barr turned to his campaign manager, former Ross Perot adviser Russ Verney. "How long do we have here, Russ?"

Time enough, evidently.

Barr took issue with McCain's Iran policy. "I'm not going to go around making up songs about such a serious matter as going to war with a sovereign nation, as Senator McCain did," the former congressman said, tut-tutting McCain's "Barbara Ann/Bomb Iran" episode.

He quarreled with McCain's Iraq policy. "These troops need to be brought home," he offered.

He ridiculed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which, he said, means McCain "cannot ever lay legitimate claim, at least with a straight face, to . . . being labeled as a conservative."

He put down McCain's plan to do away with pet-project earmarks, claiming it "would make barely a drop in the bucket with regard to the national debt, the deficit."

And he disparaged McCain's fiscal policy, saying "there are some legitimate questions that have been raised over whether Senator McCain is simply a Johnny-come-lately to the modest tax cuts."